“I was such a fool, kalóz mou. I should have told you that I loved you. Instead, I hurt us both by trying to convince myself that I didn’t.”
“Samantha?” a man shouted. “Where are you?”
Sam groaned. “It’s Nick.”
“Sam,” another man yelled. “Answer us. Where are you? Are you all right?”
“And that’s Rafe.” Sam smiled at Demetrios. “They probably figured we’ve murdered each other by now.”
“Sam?” a third voice joined in. “Damnation, girl, you let us know if you’re all right, you hear?”
“Oh, hell. Jonas, too.” She sighed as Demetrios leaned his forehead against hers. “They’re going to find us in a couple of minutes.”
“That’s good.” Demetrios cleared his throat. “I wish to speak with Jonas. And with Marta.”
Sam looked up at him in surprise. “Why?”
“I am Greek,” he said, as if that explained everything.
Her eyebrows lifted. “What a surprise,” she said sweetly.
“I am Greek and old world, as you once pointed out. And I wish to ask your mother and stepfather for your hand in marriage.”
“Well,” she said softly, eyes bright with love, “in that case, I think you might keep in mind that I am American and new world, and you’d better ask me first.”
He knew she was teasing him, that she had already given her answer with her kisses and her tears, but he wanted this moment to be one they would remember all their lives, how they’d admitted what was in their hearts in a garden filled with flowers while water spilled like soft rain from a fountain and filled the air with its music.
Demetrios dropped to one knee and clasped Sam’s hand.
“Samantha. I love you more than life itself. I’ll be the best husband I can be, if you will marry me and share my life.”
Tears welled in Sam’s eyes and slipped down her cheeks. “Yes. Oh, yes, Demetrios. I will.”
He rose just as footsteps pounded down the path. Jonas Baron burst into the clearing with his wife, his stepdaughters and their husbands on his heels.
“There you are,” he yelled, “you lily-livered, no-account, no-good Greek son of a—”
“Son-in-law,” Marta said, putting her hand on her husband’s arm. “Isn’t that what you were going to say, Jonas?”
Jonas looked at the man who stood with his arm around Sam’s waist. He was big and hard-looking. And smitten, Jonas thought with delight. Absolutely, totally smitten.
“We have met before,” Demetrios said. He stepped forward and cleared his throat. “Perhaps you recall…”
Smitten and nervous, too. Jonas almost cackled with delight.
“Mr. Baron. Jonas. I ask for the hand of your stepdaughter. I love her with all my heart, and she loves me. We very much want your blessing. And yours, of course,” he said, flashing a smile at Marta, but steely determination replaced the smile in an instant. “But I should tell you both that if you refuse me the right to marry Sam, I’m going to marry her anyway.”
Marta laughed. Jonas grinned, put his arm around his wife’s shoulders and held out his hand to Demetrios.
“Son,” he said, “welcome to the family.”
* * *
The four Baron brothers had been tossed out of the house by their stepmother.
“Out, all of you,” Marta had said. “You’re just in the way here. Go on, take a walk or something until it’s time for the ceremony.”
Travis, Slade, Gage and Tyler had shot each other looks and made a quick break for the door. It wasn’t often a man got away from all the hubbub that went with what their wives insisted on calling a simple little home wedding at Espada.
On the way through the kitchen, they stopped just long enough to grab a couple of six-packs…and to collect three other lost-looking males. Their cousin, Gray, looked as if he was trying to fade into the wall along with Nick and Rafe.
“What are you guys doing in here?” Tyler said in surprise.
“Trying to keep from being caught in the stampede,” Rafe muttered.
“Trying to avoid your old man,” Gray said bluntly. “I don’t think Jonas and I have said more than hello and goodbye in the last ten years but every time I turned around today, there he was.”
Slade grinned. “He wants something from you. That’s the old here-I-am and by god, there-you-are routine he’s so good at.”
“Well, that’s the problem. ‘You want to talk to me, Jonas?’ I finally said. And he got this look on his face as if I were crazy. ‘What the hell makes you think so?’ he said, and wandered away.”
“So? Problem solved.”
“Yeah.” Gray sighed. “Except, he looks like a man with something on his mind…” He shook his head and reached for a six-pack. “How about we get out of here for a while?”
Tyler clapped his cousin on the back. “The man’s a genius,” he said. “Is it any wonder he’s a big-shot New York lawyer?”
The little group laughed, went out the back door, almost ran over a pair of gardeners giving a last-minute manicure to some shrubs and made a beeline for the barn.
“We used to hold meetings here, when we were kids,” Travis said. “Well, Slade and Gage and I did. Nobody ever found us.” He looked from one man to the other. They were all wearing tuxes, white shirts with ruffles and the pained expressions of men who knew they looked foolish and couldn’t do a damn thing about it. “Anybody worried about gettin’ dirt on these monkey suits?” He waited, then chuckled. “I didn’t think so.”
Moments later, the men of the Baron clan were sitting in the old hayloft, their backs against the planked walls as they soothed their parched throats with gulps of cold beer.
“Man,” Slade said, “you’d think women would get tired of these things.”
“Weddings?” Gage sighed. “Never.”
“He’s right,” Travis added. “Women love all this stuff. The flowers. The candles. The music. The fuss. And I’ll be damned if I can understand the reason.”
“The reason,” Tyler said smugly, “is because they’re women.” His brothers looked at him. So did Nick, Rafe and Gray. “Well, it’s the truth. There are X chromosomes, and Y chromosomes, and—”
“And you can tell the ones that are X’s,” Gray offered, “because they’re dressed in pink.”
“Definitely dressed in pink.” Nick said solemnly. “Yeah, I read about that new scientific discovery.”
They laughed, sighed, drank more beer. Rafe cleared his throat.
“The man’s okay, you know.”
They all knew what he meant and they all nodded.
“He’d better be,” Slade said, after a minute. “Otherwise, we’ll set him straight.”
“You mean, Sam’ll set him straight,” Gage said.
The men chuckled.
“She’s one tough piece of work,” Tyler said, and smiled. “Like my Caitlin.”
“Like all of them,” Travis said. “Baron men don’t marry weak women.”
“And Brewster women don’t marry weak men.”